On September 14, 1862, Robert E. Lee's opportunistic first invasion of the North was turned back at the gaps of South Mountain near Boonsboro, Maryland. The fighting was desperate and for the numbers engaged rather bloody. It has become just a footnote in history, but it was here that the Confederacy reached it's high tide.

South Mountain by Rick Reeve

South Mountain by Rick Reeve depicting the wounding of General Garland

Friday, May 6, 2011

A Thank You

Today marks my last day working as a National Park Service intern at South Mountain State Battlefield. It may be cliche to say that it only feels like yesterday that I started here but thats how I feel. This year went by way to fast. Coming up here, I knew very little about the Battle of South Mountain except from what I've read in various books about the Maryland Campaign but leaving here I feel like I have a grasp on the events that occured on that bloody sunday in 1862. I'd like to thank the National Park Service and the Maryland Park Service for giving me the opportunity to work at this wonderful site. The State of Maryland has something really special here and I feel proud that I was able to help interpret this wonderful battlefield with the Maryland Park Service Staff. It was special to me that I got to see the original stonewalls at Fox's Gap, the land over which the Iron Brigade earned its famous moniker at Turner's Gap, and the site where the war could have been ended at Crampton's Gap. I'll stop here so that I don't continue to ramble, so I'd like to thank again the National Park Service and the Maryland Park Service for this opportunity that I will never forget.

I would like to thank my wife, Heather, for supporting me while I worked here and with this blog. She was my first reader and she helped me gain confidence with writing this blog as well as giving tours. If you know me, I'm a kinda shy person so I just sit there and be quiet. She was the one I gave my first tour to. She helped me feel comfortable giving the tour and she helped point out little things that I needed to work on, like not mumbling, so that I could do the best I could. Thank you babe, I couldn't have done it without you.

I would also like to thank the readers of this blog for your support. It started out as a way for me to remember what I was learning when I firsted started out. Now it will be away for me to continue learning about this important battle as well as educating the public about the events that occured here. The blog will continue until every last resource I have avaliable to me is exhausted and then I'll just write some more. I truely love this battlefield and I feel that it is finally getting its place in the spotlight. Thank you and I hope that you will continue to support my efforts as well as the efforts of the National Park Service and the Maryland Park Service in interpreting (NPS) and preserving (MPS) this place where thousands of American's shed their blood for the cause in which they believed. Thank you.

About Me

I am a student of the Civil War. I've had an interest in studying this conflict since I was ten and my passion for it has just grown ever since. I want to bring to life the stories of those men who fought and bled so that this nation could experience a "new birth of freedom". I am a former NPS intern at South Mountain State Battlefield and also a former Historical Intepreter at Fort Frederick State Park.